Fenton Family Fragments
by Zalein
Summary: Some call them eccentric. The less polite ones call them flat out insane. Whatever they are, they're a family, and in the end that's all that really matters.
1. Little Brother

**Title: Little Brother**

**Genre: Angst/Family**

**Summary: Danny probably has no idea just how much Jazz worries about him. (A Jazz-Danny sibling fic).**

**Notes: This was originally written with different stuff in mind, but it turned out cool. Tons of thanks to Pixiegirl13 for proofreading this for me, and a Merry (late) Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!**

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_Subject __**Little Brother**__ has acquired poor sleeping and eating habits. He has also been failing in activities he is expected to succeed in by people whose love and support his values. Their disappointment has affected him, and the restrictions they impose are presenting difficulties in his ability to proceed to activities he holds extremely high on his list of priorities. All of these factors are imposing unhealthy amounts of stress on the subject. Conclusion?_

Jazz chewed on the end of her pen, straightening her posture while she thought. Her room was a perfect place for sorting things out, and she needed such an environment now more than ever.

Danny was in trouble. She was worried about him.

Back before the secret of her being 'in the know' had gotten loose she'd been so busy trying to help inconspicuously that she'd never had any real chances to observe him. Now, however, she was finding herself with enough time and space to notice things that were sending her future-psychiatrist-in-training alarm-bells wailing like sirens.

Danny's lack of sleep was one of those things. He had near-permanent shadows under his eyes, and a few careful questions to a couple of his teachers had shown that he'd been having troubles staying awake in class.

Another problem was that he was getting thin. Their Mom had been slender, true, and Jazz was downright skinny, and she supposed that it was possible for him to have had that body structure all along and that she simply hadn't taken stock of it before. It was also possible that he was just on a series of growth-spurts that kids his age were still prone to, leaving him gangly and awkward. Any number of innocent possibilities and believable excuses could be found, and any one of them could be right. Unfortunately, Jazz had a hunch that none of them were true. Even more unfortunately, she had no way of proving anything until she had something solid to work with. Until she found some recent but pre-Ghost Portal photos she could compare him to, or better yet some actual health records with his previous weight, she would have no real evidence to lean on as a reliable fact in her analysis and diagnosis.

She was the daughter of scientists and an aspiring psychologist. More than either of those, she was Danny's big sister, and she wasn't going to stop trying to help him until all evidence showed he was alright again.

_Conclusion: Not enough information has been gathered to decide anything major. Until then, __**Little Brother**__ should have ghost-free counseling, with the absolutely-ghost-free counselor giving Person-Centered therapy. _

Jazz studied the neat little paragraph. Pausing only to carefully cross a 't' that she had missed earlier, she closed the notebook and put it in it's place. This was probably the most momentous case-study of her life, and she was determined to keep everything where she could find it instantly.

Once that was done, Jazz stretched laboriously, glad that she'd planned things so that none of her note-taking would happen on a school night. She would stay up all night for as long as she could if it meant looking after him. This was her baby brother, and his health was more important to her than anything. Meanwhile, her planning included disguising her record notes as a notebook like any other on her shelf (to keep him from worrying if he started snooping around her room.) Paranoia might be a problem for both the Fenton siblings someday, if this ghost situation ever died down, but until then the facts were that everyone was out to get Danny, and Danny had no respect for her personal privacy.

Jazz fought down a yawn as she started searching for her pajamas. It really was quite late, and she would probably need a nap tomorrow to keep herself alert. She would do it when Danny was out and wouldn't notice, though. She glanced at the clock to get an idea of how many hours she was missing and how many she'd need to make up for them. 1:08 AM. Jazz stared at the clock, not having realized that she'd taken quite so long perusing her research. Not that she regretted any of it, but really, losing track of time for quite _that_ long while studying just wasn't normal for her.

Though, perhaps she was overreacting just a bit to Danny's situation as a whole—after all, it wasn't like he had anything serious, or she'd have noticed a long time ago.

But then, hadn't she noticed something was wrong a while back? Wasn't that when she'd tried sending him to Dr. Spectra? Well, her concern had been sincere, at least, and thank goodness that Danny knew that…

Being so lost in her thoughts, it took a moment for Jazz to realize that she'd just heard a soft _thump_ from the room beside her. The room on that side was Danny's. She blinked slowly, shaking her head slightly to get more oxygen to where she knew it was needed, and listened to see if it would come again. After a few long moments of hearing nothing she left her room anyway, slipping out and down the hallway. When she'd tiptoed her way to Danny's door she knocked as quietly as she could and waited for some response. None come, so after a moment she reached for the doorknob, turning it as quietly as any nosey older sister can.

Her brother's room was dark, but distant glows from street-lights and the Op-Center overhead were casting a slightly-brighter-than-usual light around the room. Jazz glanced around and realized that one of the windows had had its curtains left wide open, with its lengths of cloth tied into knots so they wouldn't just sink back into place.

"Danny?" She whispered, looking back at the bed. Now that her eyes were adjusting to the not-quite-darkness of his room she thought she could see some movement, as though he were turning restlessly in his sleep. Jazz glanced down to make sure she wouldn't step on anything breakable (apparently being a full-time hero hadn't taught her brother anything about tidiness) and approached the bed.

She watched his fidgeting outline for several long moments until he turned over in his sleep again, this time facing her. Watching his face, she came to two conclusions: one, that he was definitely asleep, and two, he was having a nightmare.

"Poor Danny…" She whispered, not talking to him but not really talking to herself, either. She sat down as carefully as she could to keep from shaking the bed, still watching him. He turned his head away when the shift in weight had caused the bed to slightly tilt. She waited for him to go still again before reaching out and putting a boney, cold hand on his arm, wishing she had some inexplicable ghost power of her own that could somehow cure all his problems in a heartbeat.

Her wish wasn't coming true any time soon, but at least Danny was calming down. After a few moments he started moving again, but this time it was to unconsciously curl up closer to her. Jazz blinked at this, but then realized that he was cold—or at least, that his pajama-sleeve under her hand was cooler than it should be--and that he was drawing closer to her for warmth. She scooted a little closer to him, musing that maybe her body-heat might at least solve his current nightmare. She'd need to get him another blanket before she left.

While she thought she looked around for his alarm-clock, and found that it wasn't on the bedside table like it usually was. She gingerly twisted and craned her neck until she finally found it on the floor beside the bed, right where it had landed squarely on a pillow. It had been so conveniently set up, and the clock was perched so squarely dead center on it that Jazz wondered if that pillow hadn't been placed there intentionally. That thought led her to wonder if Danny might have had any experience with nightmares that she might not know about. If so, then this was certainly an important fact for her case-study of him: Danny wasn't just losing sleep to ghost fighting, he was losing rest to nightmares, too. And if he was having nightmares, then that meant there was a whole new array of potential psychological difficulties he might have…

They would just have to tough through it all, Jazz decided absently, mind tiredly flipping through possibilities of mental disorders. She was his big sister and she would help him through whatever it was that he needed her for.

'_Don't worry, Danny'_, she thought, '_you're not alone in this.'_


	2. Winding Down

**Title: Winding Down**

**Genre: family/ Friendship**

**Rating: K+**

**Summary: What does the Phantom team do to relax after a long day? Well, for one thing… A sibling-fic, Jazz-Danny.**

**Notes: Horray for sibling fics! I took a major Physics exam the day I wrote this, and was relaxing over pizza and iced tea at the time.**

**Special thanks to Pixiegirl13 for proofreading this for me. :) **

"So, uh, how was your day, Jazz?" Danny said. He already had an idea of how it had probably gone if the slightly grey tinge to her face was anything to go on. There was also the fact that his own day of exams hadn't exactly been a cakewalk, either. The silence in the car while the siblings made their way home had been getting to him, though, so he'd asked anyway.

Jazz didn't reply at first. When Danny called her name again a little louder she jumped and sent him a reproving frown. "Danny! Don't you know better than to surprise me while I'm driving, I could have had a wreck! Is something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Danny said, leaning back in his chair. He'd gotten used to her patronizing tone years ago and it no longer affected him as much as it might have. Usually. "You just didn't answer the first time I called."

Jazz's glare deflated, and she focused on the road again. "Sorry, Danny. What were you saying?"

"How was your day?" Danny repeated.

"I had three major exams today on subjects that could very well determine the levels of success that I reach in future endeavors." Jazz said, sounding pained. "I'm exhausted, and I don't think I should do anything stressful over the next few days at the risk of overtaxing myself beyond advisable boundaries."

Danny blinked. "So… you're really, really tired?"

He sounded uncertain, and Jazz quirked an eyebrow, looking mildly amused. "Yes, basically." Danny nodded and Jazz went on. "I'm cautiously optimistic that I did well on my tests. I'm waiting until I get home to go through my notes to see if I got the questions I remember correct, though."

Danny laughed at that. ". Didn't they accuse you of cheating when you checked right after the tests last time and knew your grades five minutes later?"

Jazz hunched a little at the wheel, seeming to sag in embarrassment. "Yes…" Danny snickered, and Jazz quirked another eyebrow in his direction, easily scooping up something to needle him right back with. "Well, what about you, Danny, how did your exams go?"

Danny stopped laughing and grimaced instead. "I think I did okay in everything but History. Those flashcards you made really helped, but they kept asking for names and dates and weird stuff I didn't remember for the test." He paused. "No biggie, though, I think I passed."

Jazz heaved a sigh, as though 'merely passing' were some sort of personal failure she had taken part in. "I suppose that'll do this time… I've only just started helping you with your homework, and who knows, maybe next time you'll even have this whole ghost situation back under control." She looked a bit brighter at this idea.

"Yeah, maybe," said Danny, not sounding as optimistic as she did. Not wanting to continue that line of conversation any further, he cast around for something else to say. "So… what're you going to do now that exams are over?"

"I'm going to organize my notes so that I can get to them the next time I need to. Then I'm going to start reading ahead for next semester." She glanced at him sidelong. "You should do that too, you know. You're not going to have enough time to go to school and fight ghosts without making the best of your free time now."

"Urgh, no more studying! Come on, Jazz. It's winter break! Can't a guy get a vacation every once in a while?"

"Your education is important, Danny!"

"Yeah, and so's my sanity! Now imagine for once that school wasn't an issue and that you had three whole weeks to do anything you wanted. What would you do?"

Jazz paused, frowning in thought. "…Well, there is this seminar on the psychological disorders most commonly found in children from troubled homes that I've been hearing about…"

Danny gave her an incredulous look. "Okay…" he tried again, "What would you do if you acted your age and liked things that normal people liked?"

Jazz shot him a look. "Very funny."

Danny grinned impudently. "Thanks, I try. Seriously, though. I mean, what about going to the movies, or the theme-park? If you don't have any friends to hang out with then I bet Sam and Tuck wouldn't mind you hanging out with us every now and then…"

Jazz rolled her eyes, not rising to his bait. "Thank you, oh wise and generous brother. I'll keep that in mind next time I feel like getting cars hurled in my direction by the ghost of the week."

"We don't spend all our time together fighting ghosts," Danny pointed out. "I mean, last week we went flying for almost an hour to wind down after hours of studying."

Jazz's eyes went wide. "Flying, all of you? As in, you carried both of them at once, while unsupported by anything except yourself over several hundred feet above the ground?"

"It wasn't that high all the time, and relax, we do it all the time!" Danny said defensively. "And it's not like I'll let them fall or anything. Skulker's at least three times heavier than they are put together, and I throw him around all the time!"

"But still! Jazz insisted, "that is so dangerous! What if your powers failed, what if something attacked you in midair, what if—"

"Jazz, calm down, I've got it covered. My powers only go funky when I get hit by something weird and suspicious-looking, and I haven't gotten hit by anything like that in ages. Nothing can attack us because it won't be able to see us being invisible. And even if a ghost could find us, we'd be too intangible to hit. Trust me, we're sure it's safe."

"But… still…" Jazz repeated, sounding only mildly reassured.

"Hey, if you want I'll take you sometime, so you can see how it is for yourself." Danny suddenly suggested, smiling brightly.

Jazz turned in her seat to give him a look, before Danny gestured forward nervously, and she turned back to the road. After a long moment of quiet she grumbled, "Even ignoring how dangerous flying is for a non-ghost, weren't you wanting me to suggest something 'normal' just now?"

Danny laughed and looked a little sheepish. "Okay, so maybe normal's a little out of our league…"

Jazz smiled too, pausing again before talking. "Well… I suppose it'd be worth a try. Only if we stay slow, though. And we better stay close to the ground at first!"

Danny shrugged. "Sure. That's what Sam said the first time we went flying, too."

Jazz glanced at him. "What about Tucker? Was he there?"

Danny grinned. "He was, but I'd flown him a few days before that at almost fifty miles an hour, about a zillion feet above the ground. One of Technus' flying rocket-gizmos had grabbed him and I caught him on his way down. When we landed he said he was never going flying again."

"You said he flew with you guys last week," said Jazz, far too used to wild ghost-hunting stories to even bother fretting now. It was strangely ironic that she was more worried about what they were doing to have fun than what they were doing to stay alive.

Danny snickered. "Yeah, I did—two days after his 'flight' Sam wanted to give the Phantom travel agency a go, and he joined back in."

Jazz shook her head. "Well, at least he wasn't horribly traumatized by previous experiences."

Danny nodded, still grinning. "Yeah, at least. So, when do you wanna go flying? Is tomorrow night good? Tuck, Sam and I have a project we want to start tonight, so I'm kinda busy…"

"Tomorrow would be fine. I was planning on cleaning my room tonight anyway."

"Geeze, Jazz, do you ever take a break?"

"This coming from round-the-clock-superhero extraordinaire. If anything, I should be the one urging you to rest!" Jazz shot back.

"Point taken."

"Good," said Jazz.

Neither of them said anything after that, lapsing into a comfortable silence. The car finally slowed as they arrived home from school. When they got inside, they tossed their quick 'Hi, Mom!'s towards the flurry of cookie-dough-creation in the kitchen and went upstairs. Just before they parted ways in the hall Danny whispered to Jazz, "Remember tomorrow night!"

Jazz rolled her eyes, but grinned. "I'll try to not forget." She whispered back drolly.

Danny grinned and then turned back to his room, while Jazz turned back to hers and disappeared through her door. It was good to finally be able to relax.


	3. Name Dissasociation

_Author's Note: I wrote this a few months ago, but only looked up today and realized that I still hadn't posted it. Enjoy!_

"Mom?" Jazz yelled, trying to shout over the vacuum-cleaner's roar. "Could you help me with something for a minute?"

"What's that, Jazz? Oh," Maddie said, turning the machine off and smiling at her. "I'm sorry, sweetie, what did you say?"

"I said 'could you help me with an assignment for school?'" Jazz repeated. She lifted her college-bound notebook and pen. "We're studying the cognitive processes involved in sensory perception, and I volunteered to do an extra credit essay over 'Processing misinterpretations.'"

"That sounds like a very broad topic, Jazz," said Maddie, tapping her chin and tilting her head back in thought. "Have you got a thesis statement yet, or are you still working on that?"

"I have several statements, but I'm hoping I can narrow it down before I set myself up for a fifteen paged essay instead of five," Jazz admitted. "There are far too many instances in every day life where people see things and think they're seeing something else. Like if you glance at a sign in a library, you might think it says 'books' instead of 'bucks' no matter what it really says at second glance. I start writing about something simple like that, though, I'll need to be thorough and write all about extra stuff like speed reading, sight recognition, current technological advances in visual analysis that are related to this…"

"Yes, that is a problem," agreed Maddie. Jazz sighed and stared unhappily at her paper, giving her mother time to think. It didn't take her long, and when she was done the woman snapped her gloved fingers and said, "_Aha_! I know what you can do!"

"What is it?" Jazz asked immediately.

"Name recognition!" said Maddie excitedly, the ceiling lighting glaring off her goggles, "That's a narrow enough topic, and still has plenty of material to fill up as much space as you like and still have scholarly merit for your work!"

"That's great!" said Jazz, before she thought about it and paused. "Uh… Actually, that's a little too narrow. I could probably pad it with a couple more biology paragraphs than I actually need, but I was hoping to focus more on the psychological aspect than the physiological…"

"So the question of how people react to certain words that have nothing whatsoever to do with their personal names wouldn't be complicated enough?" Maddie asked, looking a little surprised.

"Well," said Jazz, "that would be basically the same as what I was going to write about sight, wouldn't it? You see an unusual word that looks similar to one you'd expect to be there instead, so you see the expected word instead of what it really is."

Maddie looked at her blankly (and because of her hood and goggles, the look was _very_ blank) before she smiled a little uncertainly. "Ah, sweetie, that's not entirely what I meant."

Jazz looked up, her pencil-hand absently scratching something out on paper without her eyes' guidance. "What is it, then?"

Maddie left the vacuum appliance standing where it was, turning towards the lab's door with a growing smile. "I think this is something you need to see again for yourself."

The Fenton Lab's counters were completely covered in clutter and tools, which were all illuminated by only a faint glow given off by lights around the Ghost Portal. Jack Fenton was standing at one of the tables with his back to the room, his giant form obscuring whatever project he was working on. He didn't look up when his wife and daughter entered the room, and seemed to be concentrating so hard that Jazz wondered if she should tiptoe to keep from disturbing him.

Maddie had no such reservations, and in fact headed straight for him. "Jack, sweetie, do you have a minute?"

"Hn? Oh, oh yeah, just a second, lemme finish these last few…" Jack mumbled distractedly, eyes never leaving the metal contraption before him. His hands were busy with a set of shiny metal washer-disks, which he was attentively placing somewhere deep inside the invention.

Maddie leaned against the worktable beside him, peering up at his face. "Actually Jack, I was wondering if we could talk now. It's about groceries, and also chores…"

"Yes, yes… Uh, what? Of course, I'll get right on it," Jack replied, lifting his head a little but never moving his focus from his project.

Maddie continued staring up at him for a few seconds, then turned to Jazz, looking somewhere between exasperated and amused. "I'll be upstairs Jack," she said absently, pushing off the table and walking back towards her daughter.

"Yes, right—just a few more minutes, I'll be there…" Jack said, clearly on autopilot.

Jazz gave her dad a slightly odd look, but wasn't surprised by his inattention. She was a Fenton, after all, and after living with him her entire life this behavior was only to be expected. What she didn't know was why her mom had brought her down to show her this when she already knew about it.

As though sensing her unspoken question, Maddie smiled back at her as she started up the stairs. "As you can see, Jazz, I've just spoken to your father a total of three times without any response whatsoever. However, now that I'm going to say the word 'fudge'—"

Jack turned around, tools in each hand and eyes taking a moment to focus on the girls in the room "What? Was someone talking to me?"

"—and he looks up," Maddie concluded, looking even more amused and shaking her head a little.

Jazz's eyes grew very wide. "So you're saying that in this case a name doesn't necessarily have to be a form of address but can be any specific term or tone or inflection that somehow calls attention to such a degree that—"

"I take it neither of you were talking to me?" asked Jack inquisitively, half-turning as though being drawn magnetically back to the table.

Maddie smiled fondly at him. "I was saying that I made some more fudge, dear. It's in the fridge."

Jack looked directly at her and smiled warmly back. "Thanks, Maddie—you're a life saver!"

"I know, dear," Maddie replied, her smile widening adoringly. She and Jack shared a look for a long moment, before Jack turned back to the table and Maddie turned to Jazz.

Jazz, meanwhile, had hunched over the notebook in her arms and was scribbling furiously. She muttered quietly to herself, "Granted, the concept of these general-attention-attracting-audio-cues is probably just as horribly a broad topic as sight recognition, but if I narrow it down to talking about specific elements that can call a person's attention from a state of complete isolation, perhaps even including mental states such as shock or…"

Maddie smiled as her daughter, who turned and hurried back up the stairs, being far too absorbed by her muttering to even say goodbye. The mother followed her up and closed the door to the basement behind her, and by the time she had reached the livingroom Jazz was already in full-study mode on the couch.

Maddie continued her routine cleaning, letting the sound of the vacuum fill the room and cover her daughter's mumbling. This vacuum had been specially modified into a Fenton Extractor a long time ago, but it still worked just as well to clean carpets as it had before then.

She watched Jazz work in her peripheral vision, noting how her daughter rocked back and forth when she looked from reference book to notebook paper. It occurred to Maddie that Jack wasn't the only one with unusual cues, and on a whim she turned to the staircase and called up, "Danny!"

The movement to her right stilled almost immediately. "Yeah?" came a muffled voice from upstairs, barely audible over the vacuum's roar.

Maddie smiled. "Don't forget your chores, sweetie! The lab really needs cleaning today—ah, it's getting a bit desperate, actually!"

"Okay, Mom!" Danny called back.

"Thanks, Danny—just be sure to remember to do it before dinner!" Maddie replied cheerfully, turning back to her own chore at hand. Still watching out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jazz discreetly look back down at her papers and return to her research.

All was right in the world.


End file.
